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Earth Imitates Life

Large rocks stretch to the sky at Rialto Beach in Olympic National Park

These large rocks at Rialto Beach in Washington’s Olympic National Park reminded me of goose barnacles stretching to the sky. There are tide pools by the rocks if you’d prefer life to its imitation. There’s a gull enjoying this lovely spring morning as well as I always like to sneak a little wildlife into my landscape pictures when I can. Shown below are actual goose barnacles (also known as gooseneck barnacles) from Enderts Beach in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park in California. Their stalk is said to resemble the necks of geese and according to Wikipedia, goose barnacles and the barnacle goose were named after each other, as the goose was suspected of growing from the barnacle.

Goose barnacles crowd together in a tide pool

Down Upon the Bittern’s Beak

Downy feathers cling to an American bittern's beak after a preening session

Downy feathers cling to an American bittern’s beak after a preening session on a rainy winter afternoon. This one was at South Quigley Lake at Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, my second favorite place to watch for bitterns on the refuge (and the first if there aren’t tall grasses along the final channel beside Rest Lake, like during the winter this was taken).

Spring Comes to Irving Park

Our dog Ellie sits in front of blossoming trees in the dog park section of Irving Park in the Irvington neighborhood of Portland, Oregon in April 2017

A picture of Ellie from April in front of blossoming trees at the edge of the dog park section of Irving Park. As much as I love the rain even I was ready for such a glorious sunny day after a wet winter and a wet start to the spring. But then the spring got unusually hot and dry for a while and I was longing for the rain again. I was standing in line at the cafeteria the other day when we had a lovely warm day after a stretch of miserable hot days, and the cashier asked me if this weather was more to my liking since he knows I hate the heat. I said it was just about perfect but I’d love some rain and a colleague in line looked like she was about to have a heart attack and made me repeat what I had just said, her eyes wide in disbelief.

I post this as evidence that I do like the sun in addition to the rain, just give me the warm days, you can keep the hot ones.